Rights Talk and the Enabling of Wrongs

Author(s):  
Robert A. Ferguson

This chapter illustrates how the typical court opinion on prisoners' rights proclaims constitutional guarantees in principle while taking them away in practice. Judges say a right is available but not in the decision before them. One of the ironies in prison abuse comes here. The abstractions in rights talk allow many particulars to be ignored even as the stress on individual rights ignores the collective nature of prison problems. The rubrics that protect civil rights depend on balancing tests between particular redress and communal interests, and these tests invariably work against prisoner complaints through security claims. Prejudgment easily dismisses the person complaining through the crime committed, sometimes long ago.

1990 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 8-9
Author(s):  
Jennifer Nedelsky

Most Americans take for granted the notion that the powers of government are circumscribed by individual rights. But this commonplace notion is, in fact, very complicated conceptually and poses difficult problems institutionally. This course explored both the conceptual and the institutional problems, from their origins to their contemporary manifestations. We began with the formation of the Constitution: the writing of the document in the Constitutional Convention of 1787, its ratification, the addition of the Bill of Rights in 1789, and the establishment of judicial review. As a starting point, I offered my own perspective through excerpts from my forthcoming book, Private Property and the Limits of American Constitutionalism: The Madisonian Framework and Its Legacy. My central argument is that the Framers' concern with protecting the rights of property distorted both their understanding of constitutionalism and the institutions they designed to implement that understanding. The Framers wanted to design a republican form of government based on the notion of consent by the governed, and thus some form of democratic (as we would call it today) representation. But the Federalists, whose views dominated the convention, also wanted to ensure that civil rights would be secure in the new republic. Property became the focus of their efforts to make the political rights implicit in republican government compatible with the security of civil rights. Unfortunately, their focus on the protection of unequal property, the property of the minority as threatened by the (future) propertyless majority, distorted their vision of the basic problem of protecting individual rights in a democracy. Their fears of the propertyless bred a focus on containing the political power of the people.


1989 ◽  
Vol 76 (1) ◽  
pp. 300
Author(s):  
Fred D. Ragan ◽  
John Braeman

Author(s):  
Mercedes Barros ◽  
Virginia Morales

En el presente artículo se aborda la relación entre populismo y derechos ciudadanos desde una perspectiva histórica y política, atendiendo a ciertos aspectos atribuibles al populismo en tanto fenómeno político específico y enfocando el análisis en una experiencia histórica determinada de los así llamados populismos clásicos. Puesto que de manera reiterada se ha señalado que los regímenes populistas suponen una convivencia conflictiva en el ejercicio efectivo de los derechos y libertades individuales, el objetivo del artículo se encamina a contribuir al esclarecimiento de esta tensión. En particular, se centra en la experiencia política del primer peronismo, dirigiendo la mirada sobre las implicaciones de este vínculo en la base de la sociedad. Para tal propósito, se recuperan ciertas matrices textuales heterodoxas, a través de las cuales se busca dilucidar la experiencia subjetiva que se forjó en torno al ejercicio de los derechos ciudadanos con el telón de fondo del discurso peronista.Abstract: This paper addresses the relationship between populism and civil rights from a political and historical perspective, paying attention to certain theoretical approaches that can be attributed to populism understood as a specific political phenomenon and focusing analysis on a certain historical experience of so called classical populisms. As time and time again it has been suggested that populism imply a conflictive coexistence between the effective exercise of individual rights and its freedoms. The aim of this paper is to feed the clarification of this tension. It focuses on the political experience of first peronismo. The paper aims to contribute to the clarification of the tension that characterizes this link, particularly focusing on its implications at the base of society. For this purpose, we recover certain heterodox textual matrices, in which we hope to elucidate the subjective experience that was forged around the exercise of civil rights against the backdrop of Peronist discourse.


Author(s):  
V.M. Marovdi

In this article the author considers the concept of restriction of individual rights in civil law, as well as the re-lationship between the concepts of restriction and encumbrance of civil rights. First of all, the lack of a legislative definition of the concept of restriction of individual rights in civil law, as well as the ambiguity of the position of the legislator on the use of the term restriction and its place among related conceptsIn writing this work, first of all, attention was paid to the Constitution of Ukraine, which is the Basic Law, which serves as a guide that establishes the general boundaries of human and civil rights. The connection of the provisions of the Constitution with the norms of the Civil Code of Ukraine within the framework of the chosen topic was presented. Emphasis is placed on the fundamental principle according to which the national legal system is built, namely: “everything is allowed that is not expressly prohibited by law.”The views of some scholars who adhere to their vision of the concepts under study are given. In addition, in this study, the relationship between the concepts of restriction and encumbrance of individual rights in civil law. In the process of writing this work, the positions of legal scholars who had relatively similar positions were given. They distinguish between the above concepts, and provide the relevant features. However, outside the scope of this study were many works of scientists who do not see a difference in these concepts.None of this was left out of the regulatory framework for the definition of the above concepts at the legislative level. In particular, it was found that in contrast to the concept of restriction of individual rights, including in civil law, the current legislation contains a definition of encumbrance. There are several acts that provide this definition. And in all cases, the definition is different.Based on the analysis of regulations, it was found that the legislator does not consistently approach the definition of encumbrance. In particular, in some cases the latter includes the encumbrancer’s right to the debtor’s movable property or restriction of such right, in others - prohibition or restriction of disposal and / or use of real estate, and in some cases the legislator identifies encumbrances and restrictions.According to the results of the study, the conclusions on the failure to define in national law the concept of re-strictions on the rights of persons in civil law, as well as the lack of a clear distinction between the concept of restric-tion of the right of person and encumbrance, in particular under civil law. There is a position on the need for further research on relevant topics, which will ensure clarity and clarity of the law, and promote its effective application, as well as consensus on this issue among scholars.


1989 ◽  
Vol 104 (2) ◽  
pp. 353
Author(s):  
John R. Schmidhauser ◽  
John Braeman

2010 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 375-403 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Czeglédi

This paper attempts to contribute to the understanding of how democracy and individual rights associated with it affect economic development. The market process approach to innovation (and entrepreneurship) is combined with the stationary bandit approach to property rights to derive a proposition concerning how the lack of exogenous constraints on the government can retard innovation. According to this, a credible commitment to secure property rights through respecting individual or human rights becomes an important factor for the process of catching up for those countries that are relatively close to the most developed ones in terms of technology and thus income. The proposition is tested on cross-country panel data using a measure of civil rights as a proxy for the commitment to secure individual rights. This argument provides one possible explanation for the fact that there is a strong correlation between democracy and income while the correlation between democracy and growth is weak.


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